Chinese athletes took four gold medals in canoeing, diving, taekwondo and volleyball on Saturday, increasing their gold medal tally to 31. From Athens, CRI correspondent Yang Binyuan reports.

China equaled its best performance at an Olympics when canoeists Meng Guanliang and Yang Wenjun won the nation's 28th gold.

The Chinese pair came first in a thrilling men's flatwater canoe C2 500 meters final on Saturday morning and won China's first ever Olympic gold in water sports.

Meng Guanliang says their accomplishment is not accidental. It's the outcome of years of hard efforts. Today, they just performed to their best to finish in first place.

Late in the afternoon, China bettered its Olympic gold record when Luo Wei won the gold medal in women's under-67-kilogram taekwondo.

The 21-year-old world champion was happy to win China's 29th gold in Athens.

Luo Wei says she was confident about the match as she competed in good form and managed to take the lead in the final.
Moving along, China came back from two sets down to take gold in an epic women's volleyball final against Russia on Saturday evening.

The Chinese, who also pipped Cuba 3-2 in the semi-finals, prevailed in five sets.

Taking the country's first Olympic volleyball title since 1984, China's players cried and hugged each other on the side of the court as the stunned Russians sat in tears.

Late in the evening, Chinese diver Hu Jia was the surprise winner of the men's 10m platform gold medal after producing a stunning final dive.

Hu Jia's last dive was given five 10s for a score of 100.98 points, the night's highest score. Defending champion Tian Liang of China took the bronze.

The victory marks the sixth diving gold that China won out of eight events in Athens.

Hu Jia says he is always trying his best in competition and the consistency in the final contributed to his victory.

Beaten by his younger teammate, Tian Liang, who turned 25 on Friday, says he will give up the idea of retirement,

Tian Liang says having lost tonight, he thinks about competing at next Olympics.

Early in the morning, China lost to Spain 92-76 in their second meet of the Olympics to finish eighth place in the men's basketball tournament. Despite of the loss, China matched its best Olympic finish in 1996, the only time it made the quarterfinals.

Ending his three-month stint as China's first foreign head coach in basketball, the Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Del Harris says what China needs now is to play more international games.

"So they have to find a way somehow to play against top world competition more than just every two years. And as far as the future, I don't want to talk about the future at this point and I'm not good at future."

On the second last day of the Athens Games, China was well clear in second position, with a haul of 62 medals, including 31 gold, 17 silver and 14 bronze medals. That already beat its record total medal tally of 59 from Sydney.

YBY, CRI News, Athens.